During Wednesday’s Boone County Board of Supervisors meeting, the topic of banning electronic smoking devices from public areas was brought forward.

This ban, if put into effect, would create a county wide ban. The county’s Board of Health drew up a draft of the proposed regulation in their last meeting.

“We’re going to hold public hearings first, because not many people attend the Board of Health meetings and we want to gauge public opinion,” said Supervisor Steve Duffy, who also serves on the Board of Health.

Duffy also said the Board of Health has been working on the proposed regulation for over a year, “Places like Story County and other counties in the area already have these bans, so it makes sense for us to do the same.”

While Wednesday’s supervisor meeting was just a discussion, board members said they anticipate a vote soon.

“I’m not sure we’ll get much opposition to this regulation, but that’s why we want to hold public hearings,” Duffy said.

In other news from Wednesday’s meeting:John Petty will relplace Craig Peterson as a memebr of the Grant Township Board of Trustees. Peterson’s reason for resigning is that he will be moving out of the township.Board members took a two-hour field trip to view various snow plow storage sheds around the county. Many of the facilities are new, and board members wanted to see firsthand how the new sheds were doing.The board approved a proposal from The Energy group to conduct an engineering study of the heating and cooling needs of the Boone County Courthouse in the future.